Who will watch the watchers?
by DM92
Summary: In light of the new Snow Queen scenes of the past couple episodes, here is a little exploration into what could (should?) have gone down after the rescue at the warehouse in 2x21, "Second Star to the Right". A multi-chapter one-shot, if you will. Please note: I do not own the concept, plot, characters, or any other aspect of the show Once Upon a Time, and make no profit from this.
1. Chapter 1

"We can't just leave her!"

Charming glanced back, then stopped, taking in the sight of Snow leaning over Regina's unconscious form, her hand hovering over the mayor's hairline. "She'll die if we don't get her help," Snow said in a panicky voice, starting to fumble with Regina's wrist restraints. His wife looked up at him, her eyes terrified but resolved, and gave him one word. "Please."

Charming let out a frustrated sigh and holstered his gun again, then strode over to the gurney and began quickly but gently ripping off the electrodes connected to Regina's face and body. On the other side of the table, Snow was removing her heavy purple coat and draping it over Regina's upper body, worry tensing every line of her body as she called the mayor's name softly, fear causing her to draw out the last syllable. "Regina?" she whispered feverishly. "Stay with me, Regina, we're here, we've come to get you, okay? Just stay with me, come on, sweetie."

She put two fingers softly to Regina's neck and held her breath. For a few heart-stopping seconds, she couldn't make out a pulse; but then—there—there it was. Weak and irregular, like a baby bird's first wobbly flaps of its wings, but blessedly still there. She looked up at Charming, who was watching intently, gave a worried smile, and nodded weakly.

Charming immediately leaned down and slid one arm under Regina's shoulders, the other under her knees, and lifted her off the table easily, Snow reaching out her arms to tuck Regina's head safely against Charming's chest. "Go, go, get her to the car, David, I'll try to find Neal and Emma," said Snow urgently, pulling him by the arm around the table and towards the door. "If I don't catch up with you in two minutes leave without me." Charming turned and opened his mouth, but Snow said loudly, "GO, NOW!" He strode out, swiftly and surely, leaning forward over Regina's body to protect her as he had done with his own daughter twenty eight years ago.

Snow watched him go, shivering slightly in the drafty room, then cast her eyes about quickly to make sure there was nothing of importance left behind. She strode over to the many-paned window in the wall and looked through the grimy glass, dodging her head around to avoid her reflection. Nothing but a couple of moldy chairs, a concrete floor littered with used cigarettes, and a few large, ugly pieces of machinery similar to the one David had just put out of commission. Several large filing cabinets lined the back wall. Sunlight filtering in from the dusty back window illuminated the many piles of yellowing paper on top of them.

With a last look at the green mat on the ugly metal gurney, Snow turned away and hurried out of the horrible bare room, walking swiftly down the corridor they'd come in through, around the corner, through a heavy metal door, up a couple rusty flights of stairs, and back into the cavernous dark space she'd last seen Emma and Neal. "Emma?" she called, walking into the middle of the space and wincing at her voice, higher-pitched than she'd expected. "Emma! Neal! Are you guys still here?" she cried, turning in place to search the fish-scented gloom around her. Steam hissed quietly from pipes crusted over with unpleasant things and broken wooden platforms lay scattered about, but she saw no sign of movement. She hesitated, then took a step forward, intending to continue in the direction she's last seen her daughter go—but then the same sensation that had torn through her, sitting at her dining table a half hour ago, paralyzed her, burst her eardrums and blackened her vision. It was a sick, _ripped-from _feeling, as if her nerves had been amputated and roughly sewn back attached to someone else's—Regina's. And what Regina was feeling caused her to fall to her knees in that slimy dark warehouse.

_Flash. Pain. Stop. Please. Why? Scream. Scream. Scream. Gasp. Tears. Burn. Please. Stop. No. Silence. Bang. Flash. Dark. Soft. Confusion. Awake. Scream._

Snow's was the voice echoing all around her, but she knew the horror was Regina's. Her vision returned blotchily as she gasped on her hands and knees, tears making the ground swim before her, echoes fading. She looked up, in the direction she thought Emma might be, and sent a prayer in her head to her daughter. 'I'm sorry Emma. Regina needs me. Be safe my baby girl_._'

She got to her feet too quickly, feeling sick, but stumbled on towards the exit, stubbornly blinking away the blackness at the edges of her vision because she knew that her two minutes were up; she knew that someone who was neither her nor her daughter desperately needed help; that David couldn't handle this alone.

She made it out into the clean air of the docks and looked around wildly for the truck—there was David, thirty yards away, starting the engine with one arm supporting Regina against himself and a grim look on his face. Snow screamed his name and began running drunkenly forward; his eyes widened with surprise and relief, and he gunned the truck forward to meet her halfway, spraying gravel when he braked. Snow clambered in and slammed the door, pulled Regina's inert body against her own, and urged, "Go, go!" Her husband stepped on the gas as Snow grabbed the phone sitting on the dash and began frantically dialing Mother Superior's number.

"Hi, you've reached the Storybrooke Convent. Please leave us a message and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Godspeed." _Beep_. 'Godspeed indeed,' thought Snow, ending the call and dialing again. Beside her, Regina's breath hitched. Snow pulled the woman closer.

"She screamed," Charming said quietly, after a moment, not taking his eyes off the road but swerving dangerously around smaller cars and scanning his rearview mirror repeatedly. The cool air funneling through the narrowly opened windows turned into a noisy gusting that chilled his face and his sent his and Snow's hair blowing.

Snow, whose attention was divided between listening to Mother Superior's voice on the answering machine for the third time, and rubbing Regina's arm and legs to keep her blood flowing, took a moment to pull her unfocused gaze from the clock tower in the distance. "What?" she said distractedly, Charming's voice but not his words registering in her still-scrambled brain.

"When I put her in the car, she—well, not screamed, but it was a wail or a cry, whatever you wanna call it," he fumbled worriedly, glancing over at the unconscious woman. "She didn't open her eyes but she cried out—I thought maybe I hurt her but she wasn't even awake. She sort of twitched really badly and then stopped."

Snow White thought back to what she'd felt in the warehouse on her way out. David had just confirmed her feeling that the eyedrop potion lasted longer than they'd expected. "Let's just go straight to the apartment, David, it's closer than the convent," said Snow, dialing Mother Superior's number yet again; this time, she stayed on the line until the beep and said in a rush, "Mother Superior, it's Mary Margaret, we've found Regina and she's—she's really hurt. We can't take her to the hospital, we're driving straight to my house…Please, come as soon as you can, I don't—" her voice wavered, but she forced herself to say the words, "I don't know if she's going to live. Please Mother Superior, please hurry."

She hung up, gritting her teeth, and mentally kicked herself. 'You have no right to feel like this,' she spat silently. 'The woman fights for chance after chance and you shut her down over and over again. It's your own fault she's here now. Don't you dare feel sorry for yourself, Snow White.'


	2. Chapter 2

(A/N I'm so sorry for the delay guys, I had finals and family issues so I couldn't write/upload very much the past week. To make it up, I made this chapter a bit longer than the first. Please enjoy! Reviews are always welcome :) )

At the apartment, Snow dashed up the stairs ahead of Charming and unlocked the front door, hurrying to yank the flowery patchwork covers off of the bed nearest the kitchen—her bed—and sending the mismatched pillows tumbling onto the floor. She rushed to the old stove, grabbed the bright green kettle, filled it and put it to boil, then headed to the bathroom cupboard and grabbed a handful of clean mismatched washcloths. She was just about to go back to check the kettle when footsteps at the door made her turn: there was Charming, holding Regina tenderly in his arms again, Snow's coat still tucked absurdly around her limp frame. "Come on, come on," she said, dropping the washcloths on the counter and hurrying forward to motion him to the bed.

Charming moved swiftly but carefully, even though Snow could see from his face and the set of his shoulders that he was exhausted. "I can't tell if her breathing's regular, Mary Margaret. We need to get help fast," he said, laying the mayor softly on the bed. He removed Snow's coat and pulled up the bedcovers instead, gently placing Regina's hands on top of them, a childish parody of his own wife's curse from a lifetime ago. Then he draped the coat over the end of the bed and turned to his wife, concern written across his kind face. "We need to find Mother Superior, she's the only one who can help us now."

"I know, David, I know—" Snow looked past him to her stepmother lying motionless on the bed; Regina's eyelids fluttered slightly and the fingers on her right hand twitched, discomfort evident on her face. She lifted her eyes to her husband's once more, imploring him to understand, "But we can't leave her here alone, we don't even know where Emma and Neal are—"

"Mary Margaret, you have to come too, we'll find her much faster if we both go—"

"No, David—n-no, you—you go, I'll keep calling the convent while you look, but I have to do what I can for her—"

Charming looked for only a second longer into his wife's eyes before kissing her forehead, turning, and striding quickly out the open door. He would have argued, but they both knew time was short, and he would not be the one responsible for Regina's death through inaction.

Snow turned back to Regina on the bed and studied the woman's face and what she could see of her body, her hand over her closed mouth, thinking fast and trying to keep the sense of panic at the back of her mind from infecting her reasoning. Even unconscious, Regina looked afraid. Small angry-red blisters were visible on Regina's temples and hands—'Electric burns,' thought Snow. The mayor's chest was rising and falling rapidly, but by very small degrees and not at all regularly, like she was dreaming about being trapped in a small space.

Snow took a deep breath and kneeled next to the bed, picking up the nearest pillow (flowery, with a red puffball border) and carefully lifting Regina's head to place it underneath. She hesitated, then laid her head ever so gently over Regina's chest, softly covering one of the mayor's hands with her own, listening…There. Still there. Weak and quiet, possibly darkened by years of suffering, Snow knew, but Regina's heart was alive and beating. Snow closed her eyes, drawing strength from that small, resolute sound for a moment. She could faintly smell Regina's perfume, something classic and solid, not at all frilly, mixed with fear-sweat from her ordeal in the warehouse. Snow breathed in the smell for courage, then got up and strode quickly to the kettle, which had begun to whistle.

She poured boiling water into a small white bowl and had completely soaked one of the washcloths, the white one with red roses on it, before realizing what she was doing. 'Not in the Enchanted Forest anymore,' she thought exasperatedly. 'Better ways of killing infection now.' She went to the peeling-paint white cabinets and found antibacterial ointment, alcohol swabs, and bandages, and was carrying them over to the bed when Regina suddenly gasped and convulsed, crying out. Instantly Snow White went down, the things in her arms spilling to the floor, as she seized up, unable to move or speak but feeling the worst pain in her life—her brain was on fire, her heart was about to explode, and the only coherent thought in her mind was 'Alone. Alone. I'm alone. They'll kill me and I'll die alone.'

A few seconds' agony—or a few days'—and suddenly it was over. The physical part, at least. But Snow stayed bent double on the linoleum floor, sobbing at the enormous, cavernous ache that had erupted in her heart. Her brain knew that Charming was coming back soon, that she had a daughter and grandson who loved her, and a best friend who would die for her. But the knowledge was detached from her body; and her heart felt as though someone were turning it inside out, searching for someone she knew they wouldn't find, because she was alone.

"Regina…" whimpered Snow, looking up with effort at the woman on her bed. "Please…come back to us…make it stop…"

She took one last sob and then a shaky breath, gathered up her fallen materials and stood up with difficulty, leaning heavily on the kitchen counter. Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, she went to Regina's side and put the bandages and stuff on the bed; then, kneeling on the bedroom floor, she softly pushed back the hair on Regina's forehead.

"I am going to take care of you," Snow promised, her eyes moving earnestly over the mayor's face as if the unconscious woman could hear her and respond. "Regina…" She felt tears sting her eyes again but blinked them back angrily, determined to say the words with all the strength she had taken from the woman in front of her. She owed her that. "Regina I'm—I'm so sorry for what you've been through. For what we—for what _I_—" she amended, "—put you through. I'm sorry for what we never had, and I'm sorry for what we lost, for what we took from each other…" She trailed off, gazing sadly at her stepmother's beautiful face…

A shining angelic face smiling down as she reassured a terrified Snow White about getting back on her runaway horse…

A face full of anguish as she begged Snow to keep her secret from her mother, her breath showing in fearful white wisps in the cold air…

A face so young she looked like a child, standing up there nervously exchanging vows with her father…

A worried face fading in and out of focus as Snow fought a dangerously high fever and the nightmares that accompanied it…

A face that could barely stifle the laughter bubbling up, crinkling the corners of her eyes, as she watched Snow trip over air in front of a visiting prince…

A face trying desperately to disguise hurt with anger when Snow screamed that Regina would never be a mother to her, mean anything to her, be loved by her…

A face wearing a valiant but broken smile, sitting alone at Snow's birthday dinner, year after year…

A face taking on the hardened look of years of captivity when her handmaiden interrupted their strained after-dinner conversation, to inform the queen that the king had called for her tonight…

A face that was the very picture of tenderness as she held a grieving girl in her arms…

A face wearing a triumphant, brazen smile when she thought she had finally cornered Snow White…

A sneering face, no less beautiful for the expression or the rough gray prisoner's rags she wore, a face being half-obscured by a leather mask that could not hide the cracks in her armor as she began to cry when Prince Charming gave the archers the order…

A face lit with an insane smile as she thrust a knife deep into Snow's gut…

A face darkened with hate and anger and pride, vowing revenge on everyone cowering around the bright, sunlit church…

And then a face that was really a mask, condescending and aloof, giving orders and taking no bullshit from anyone, employing a raised eyebrow or a sultry smile or a dangerous glare with the subtle skill of a hypnotist, a mob boss, an actress…

And a face lit with reverence and wonder, shining with joy and love, tears threatening to spill over onto the blankets of the sleeping brown-haired baby she was holding in her arms for the first time…

Snow White had seen all these faces, loved some of them, feared others, and had always, always held overwhelming pity and compassion in her deepest of hearts for the woman she who had saved her life, who had turned into the one person who wanted Snow's death so badly she was willing to sacrifice love and family for it.

On the bed, Regina moaned weakly, her eyelids fluttering as if she were struggling to free herself from some terrible vision in her mind.

"Regina," Snow started again, brushing the tips of her fingers against the skin of Regina's forehead and the backs of them along her cheeks (Regina's left hand contracted and her breath hitched again), "I have always, _always_ wanted you to be my family. I know that it was wrong to force you into that role. And it was wrong to leave you when you most needed someone to believe in you. I was wrong. So, so terribly wrong," Snow said, voice breaking at last, and the tears she had been holding back liquefied and re-formed, rock-solid, in the middle of her throat, so that it was hard to breathe.

"I know what you've been feeling, Regina. I know how much it hurts. And I know you're afraid that you're alone," she whispered—it hurt less to use less voice, "—but you're not, Regina, I promise. I'm here now, and I won't leave until you're better. This is how it should have been. I want to make it right. I want to redeem myself," she finished tearfully, placing her hand over the mayor's, willing her to hear her through the awful memories and nightmares she was apparently still being tormented by.

The woman gave no response, but Snow hadn't really expected one. Instead she got to work, cleaning the burns on Regina's face with alcohol swabs, apologizing over and over again as Regina convulsed in pain at the chemical's touch, whispering soothing empty words over her rigid form like a prayer, like a spell, kissing her forehead repeatedly as she applied the antibiotic cream to Regina's taut hands, stretched like violin strings about to splinter from hours of holding onto agony, holding back screams.

When she thought she was finished, she got up and retrieved the soaking washcloth, wrung it out, and gently began wiping the sweat off Regina's brow. Snow's eyes fell on a mark on Regina's inner arm, up near her elbow. Dread sunk her heart like a stone, and she pulled up Regina's sleeve with trembling fingers. "No," whispered Snow, "No, please no, no, no…"

Cigarette burns, a half-dozen of them, marched their way up Regina's inner arm, mirrored on the other arm like some sick version of the foldover symmetry paintings the kindergarteners did during art time at Storybrooke Elementary. Snow gently eased up Regina's shirt and found both cigarette burns and the horrible, raw pinkness of electric burns on Regina's lightly tanned skin.

Murderous thoughts clamored in Snow's brain, each fighting to be heard over the growing roar in her ears that made it impossible to form a coherent sentiment. 'When I find those two sons of bitches,' Snow finally managed to think, glaring at the mutilation in front of her, 'I will rip them limb from limb myself. I'll pull out their fingernails and slice them open and spray their insides with gasoline.' She was sure she might burst into flames at any moment, the hate and fury radiating off her was so powerful.

Then suddenly, it was over. The monstrous feelings drained away, leaving only a tired, sad sort of resignation in their wake. She cleaned the new wounds as well as she could, again and again gripping Regina's hand tightly, mindful of the newly bandaged, tender places, as the unconscious woman reacted to the treatment, whispering over and over again, that it was almost over, that _this_ was the last one, that that was it, they were almost done, this one was the _last_ one, the final one…

Finally, exhausted, Snow felt Regina's forehead and checked her pulse one last time. Then, sweeping aside all the used alcohol swabs and all the tubes and boxes to the foot of the bed, she sat right on the edge of the bed and took Regina's hand. She thought for a moment, then pulled her cellphone from her back pocket, turned it on and hit redial, praying for an answer this time. David had only been gone about a half-hour, she guessed, but Regina had still not woken up, and her pulse was still feeble. They needed Mother Superior, but the nun could be anywhere at this time of day and week. When she got the answering machine again, she hung up and tried to stifle the panic that was threatening to engulf her again, now that she wasn't preoccupied with something more important.

Suddenly Snow sat bolt upright, eyes wide. It would never work—would it? Could it? Snow glanced down at the soft hand she was holding; a hand that had both saved her life and tried to end it. 'I have to at least try,' thought Snow desperately. Closing her eyes, Snow concentrated on the face of Mother Superior. She pictured the nun's kind smile, her steely-eyed anger, her quiet determination. Then she called out in her mind, as loud as she could:

'Mother Superior—Blue Fairy—whoever you are in this world. I need your help. Desperately,' she added truthfully. 'I was once told that if my heart was pure and true, I could call you, and you would appear, and grant my wish.

'My heart is no longer pure,' continued Snow sadly, thinking of the dark spot that had appeared on the organ in recent weeks, 'but it is still true. I am calling on you in my hour of need, not for myself, but on behalf someone who deserves your help more than anyone else,' and she pictured Regina as the woman had appeared in her mind when she had first used the eyedrop potion: cold and terrified, in agony, alone. 'Please, Blue Fairy, grant my wish. Help me, Mother Superior. You are her only hope.'

Snow opened her eyes, her vision blurry with tears again, and remembered the sting Regina's eyes had felt when, after hours of crying, yet another tear had seared along her eyelashes and spilled out of her eye, only to seep into the electric burns on her temples and set the skin on fire again. She remembered the rawness of Regina's throat after hours of swallowing her own screams, determined not to show weakness, how her lungs had begged for air she could not give them when the current ripped her head back and stopped her heart…

"Snow?"


	3. Chapter 3

_(A/N *I__mportant*: Hello everyone! Just got back from a study abroad trip in Central America, which is the reason for the long hiatus. I thank you for your patience. Before you start reading this chapter, I __**implore**__ you to go listen to Eastmountainsouth's "So Are You To Me", whose lyrics I use here. I wrote this part while listening to that song, and the story takes on a whole new color if you have that melody in your mind while reading. _

_I also tweaked the first two chapters a bit, nothing substantial to the plot, but I do think they're a lot better than before, if you wanna go check 'em out._

_One final thing: Some of you may notice certain inconsistencies in this chapter between my fic and the episode; all I can say is they will be explained in future :) Enjoy!) _

Startled, Snow White turned her head so fast she nearly cricked her neck. Looking up, she saw Mother Superior in her dark blue poncho, wearing a confused expression and taking in the scene before her with worried eyes.

"Mother Superior!" gasped Snow, scrambling to reach the nun and embrace her. "Thank God you're here!"

"Snow, what's going on? I heard you calling for me…" The nun shook her head, pulling out of the hug and peering into Snow's eyes perplexedly. "It was like…I could hear you—in my head—or my heart, maybe…You said you needed help…What's wrong with Regina?" she added apprehensively, looking over Snow's shoulder at the mayor.

"Mother Superior, she was kidnapped, they did horrible things to her, we've been calling you for almost an hour—" Now that the Blue Fairy was here, Snow couldn't believe it had taken so long to find help. She grabbed the other woman's hand and pulled her to the bed. Regina's sleeves and shirt had been pulled down to conceal the bandages, but the ones on her hands and face were obvious. "Her heart is failing, I think, you can barely feel a pulse and she keeps—crying, in her sleep, I think she's having nightmares, or she's unconscious and hallucinating—please Mother Superior, please heal her!" Snow begged her, looking straight into sensible brown eyes. Looking helplessly from Snow to Regina, Mother Superior shook her head and stammered, "Snow, I-I'll do what I can, but—this—human injuries—I don't know how much help I can give, she—she might be beyond my—"

"NO!" Mother Superior broke off, startled. "Don't say that, Mother Superior, just—just use your magic, it'll work—please—" Snow moved out of the way and gently pushed the Blue Fairy closer to the bed, then moved to the other side, sat down on the covers, and gave her a pleading look, taking Regina's spasming hand gently in her own.

The Blue Fairy shifted her gaze from Snow's face to Regina's, took a deep breath, and, frowning slightly, pulled her beautiful blue wand from her sleeve and waved it tentatively in an arc over Regina's body. Snow watched in wonder as a pale blue light shone from Regina's wounds, including the ones covered by her clothing. But other places were glowing too—Regina's forehead—and the skin over her heart. Snow covered her mouth with her other hand as her face crumpled; in a choked voice she asked, "What does the light mean?"

"It—it shows—all the places where they—where she needs healing," Mother Superior faltered as the blue light faded. Snow White turned her face away and shut her eyes against the tears. Regina's mind. Regina's heart. The pain Snow had felt on the kitchen floor, though it had seemed like an eternity, was only seconds long—nothing compared to what her stepmother had endured. What she was still going through. Mother Superior said softly, "I'm going to ease the physical pain first, that's easiest—I'll heal the surface wounds, and then I'll try to guide her out of her mind's torment, put her thoughts at peace…" she trailed off.

"And her heart?" asked Snow, her voice wavering and high-pitched, her face still turned from the bed.

There was a pause, then the Blue Fairy said sadly, "That she will have to heal on her own." Snow's tears fell freely, and she gently squeezed Regina's hand. "But perhaps you can help her, Snow White." Snow turned to her at last. "How?" she asked in a tortured voice.

The Blue Fairy hesitated, her eyes lingering on Snow's tearstained face and the women's interlocked hands. "Broken hearts can only heal with love; that much is obvious to anyone. But you and Regina—" she broke off. "You two have endured more together than anyone else I've ever known. You are the source and the cause of each other's pain.

"Regina," sighed Mother Superior, "for all her life, has been…pulled into forces she was—not equipped to deal with. They made quick work of a heart that was once pure.

"You, on the other hand, Your Majesty," she continued, lifting her eyebrows pointedly at Snow, "you have always been surrounded by good. By _love_. That is how you have managed to stay good and loving yourself. When you were faced with heartache and injustice, you were not manipulated into feeling hate, into taking revenge. You had people who believed in you." Snow White looked down at Regina's pale face, watched phantoms of fear and pain tense her features, stroked her thumb along the back of the mayor's hand. She realized suddenly that the eyedrop potion seemed to have worn off.

"It is your responsibility, therefore," continued the Blue Fairy, "to make the first step towards healing Regina's heart—_you_ must believe in _her_. You must make her see that the goodness inside her is not worthless, that the love she feels does not make her weak. You must be the one to make yourself vulnerable, to show her that you truly want to help her."

Snow, who had been drinking in the Blue Fairy's words like an antidote to the poisonous guilt that was making it hard to breathe, nodded and said, "I understand, Mother Superior." She hesitated. "Do you think—can she hear me? Can she tell I'm here with her?"

"I can't say. But I suggest you stay with her while I perform the healing spell; if she wakes, she'll know you were here the whole time. She might regain a little trust in you."

Snow nodded again, and tucked a slip of hair from Regina's temple behind her ear. "Fire away then, Blue Fairy."

Mother Superior moved right up to the edge of the bed, lifted her wand, and began circling it slowly over Regina's whole body, her eyes following the movement of her hand. The points on Regina's body that had lit up earlier did so again, and the Blue Fairy began to make smaller circles over each wound, starting at the mayor's temples. The light seeping from under the bandages glowed brighter, flashed, then disappeared. Snow White, eyes wide, reached out a trembling hand to gently pull off the bandage she had applied barely a half hour ago: there was nothing underneath. No scar, no discoloration; just soft new skin that matched the flesh around it. Snow White gasped in delight, smiling for the first time in hours, and looked up at the Blue Fairy; but the other woman had moved on to the next wound and her brow was knit in concentration. So Snow's fingers simply followed in the wake of the wand, removing the now-useless bandages and crumpling them up into the cardboard box they'd come from. She lifted up Regina's sleeves and the front of her shirt, grazing the new skin reverently with the tips of her fingers.

When the fairy finally moved her wand up to hover over Regina's forehead, Snow placed her hand quickly on the fairy's wrist and said in a rush, "Mother Superior? I—I have an idea. To…connect to Regina, while you're, um, guiding her mind. If—if it doesn't distract you too much."

Mother Superior raised her eyebrows inquiringly. Snow took a deep breath and shifted her gaze back to her stepmother. She thought back to the young woman she had known as a child; to the mother who had fought and lied and sacrificed for her son; to the broken soul who had long since stopped fighting for another chance.

Snow began to sing.

_"As the music at the banquet;_

_As the wine before the meal;_

_As the firelight in the night;_

_So are you to me."_

She didn't see the Blue Fairy's soft smile as she resumed her spelling; what she saw was Regina's face, a mask of pain and fear for the past hour, slowly become calm; she saw the mayor's chest start to rise and fall incrementally more deeply and regularly; the hand Snow had taken hold of again began to relax; and the breaths Regina took no longer sounded choked or tight or labored.

_"As the ruby in the setting;_

_As the fruit upon the tree;_

_As the wind blows over the plains;_

_So are you to me."_

Snow thought of what the woman before her had meant to her at one point in her life: Mother, sister, friend, confidante. Her father's wife and her greatest love. She thought of what she could have been: her daughter's guardian, a wellspring of invaluable advice, a companion in life. How much time had been wasted, how many lives lost, for one person's unimaginable suffering? 'How could she not have known what she meant to me?' thought Snow sadly, watching the expression on Regina's face ease, stroking the back of her hand with her thumb.

And then the realization hit her like cannonball between her shoulder blades.

'Because I never told her,' she thought hollowly. 'She was the most important person in my life, and I never thought it important enough to tell her.

'Well, I'll tell her now,' thought Snow fiercely. 'Not one more life will be ruined because I made someone go without love. Regina's least of all.' She took a deep breath and sang the song over again, putting as much emotion—love, regret, hope, understanding—as she could into the words, trying to make her stepmother hear and, more importantly, understand through the haze of pain and weakness and magic she was experiencing.

Bounding up the stairs to their apartment, panicking about not having found Mother Superior anywhere in town, Charming opened his mouth to call his wife's name—but it died on his lips when he heard Snow White's clear, lilting voice. Singing. Not the absent-minded little hums she did while contentedly folding laundry or sipping coffee in the mornings. This was the heart-wrenching, spellbinding sort of singing that he had only heard from her a handful of unforgettable times: when she had first found out she was carrying Emma; on one particularly hard anniversary of her mother's death; when she had thought Ruby—Red—had been killed by hunters one Wolfstime. He slowed in the hallway, mesmerized by her voice, and stopped at the threshold of the apartment, almost unable to believe his eyes.

Snow White was sitting on the edge of her bed, with her back to the door, singing to Regina, who, it seemed, was sleeping peacefully under the floral covers, lit by soft sunlight filtering through the white curtains in the window above her. Her forehead seemed to be glowing faintly blue, and as Charming moved fully into the apartment, the Blue Fairy, wand out, standing at the head of the bed, came into view, apparently healing Regina magically.

_"As the wind blows over the plains;_

_So are you to me;_

_So are you to me."_

Charming watched as Snow fell silent and looked up at Mother Superior, who, at the sudden quiet, glanced at Snow and gave her a nod and a small smile. "It's working. Keep going." Snow lifted Regina's hand to her lips, lowered it, then took a deep breath and resumed singing. Charming approached the bed silently, almost reverently, not wanting to startle the women or disturb what looked like a very delicate, arduous procedure: the Blue Fairy seemed to be concentrating extremely hard, with a light sheen of sweat on her forehead. And Charming knew better than to try and interrupt his wife while she was in this sort of moment. So he hung back against the back of the staircase, and just watched.

The minutes passed, but neither Snow nor Mother Superior appeared to notice him, engrossed as they were in their labor. Snow would occasionally brush her hand tenderly across Regina's forehead, or interrupt the verses with a kiss to Regina's hand, but Mother Superior kept her wand aloft over Regina's crown, and the blue light did not waver for what seemed like hours.

Finally, Mother Superior took a great breath, lifted her wand, and waved it over Regina's entire body, bringing it to rest by her side and wiping her brow just as Snow finished the last, quavering note in the melody. All of Regina's visible skin glowed very faintly blue; then the light seemed to be sucked away, retreating into the black leather cuff on Regina's left wrist.

"What is that?" asked Charming, forgetting his silence and startling Snow so badly that she visibly jumped and released Regina's hand. When she saw who it was, though, she leapt off the bed and threw herself into his embrace.

"David!" she murmured into his leather jacket. "Thank God you're here."

"I would've been here sooner if I'd known you already found Mother Superior," he said pointedly, hugging her back tightly. "Where was she?"

"At the diner," replied Mother Superior, who did not seem at all surprised to see Charming there. "Ruby told us that you suspected Regina had been kidnapped. We were trying to organize search parties and gather information."

"But then—how did you get here?" Charming asked, confused, as Snow let go at last and reached out to pick up the purple coat from the bed. The Blue Fairy opened her mouth, but could not seem to find the words, and instead turned to Snow quizzically.

"I called her," said Snow, turning to Charming and slipping her arms through the sleeves of her coat. "In…in my head. I just sort of…thought about her," Snow's hands gesticulated airily, "and…let my heart guide me to her. I think it was partly magic," she finished slowly.

Charming took a deep breath and let it go again, raising his eyebrows. He really did not understand the world or rules of magic, and preferred to just let those who knew it deal with it themselves. After all, magic always came with a price, so why dabble in something so inherently dangerous when he had already lost so much?

Returning to the world of the mundane, he asked again, "Ok, well—what is that cuff thing?" He pointed to the black bracelet on Regina's wrist. "Why did it absorb all your magic?"

Mother Superior frowned at the object in question and pointed her wand directly at it; a solid blue beam shot from the wand tip, hit the cuff, and was instantly absorbed, with no visible harm to the cuff itself. "That spell should have disintegrated it," said Mother Superior, shaking her head. "I can only assume it is meant to counteract or block all magic."

"So that's why Regina didn't fight back," said Snow quietly, sitting down on the trunk at the end of her bed and wrapping her arms around herself. "She couldn't. They'd stripped her of her powers."

"Is it permanent?" Charming asked. He moved closer to Snow and put his hands on her shoulders.

"If I can remove the cuff, she should be able to regenerate her powers, which will of course help in healing her mind and body as well."

"Is—what you did just now—didn't it work?" asked Snow. Charming could hear tension and barely-contained anguish in her voice.

"I—or rather _we_—managed to guide her mind to peace, as I'd hoped to do," affirmed the Blue Fairy. "But the spell can only do so much. Her powers are as much a part of her as her mind or her heart. If that part of her doesn't recover, her healing may not be fully possible."

"And the same goes for her heart," added Snow solemnly. Mother Superior nodded. Snow looked at Regina, and Charming followed her gaze, not entirely following the conversation. Regina's face was completely relaxed, and she was breathing deeply, hands resting serenely atop the patchwork cover where Snow had placed them. The electric burns on her face and hands were gone, and there was no sweat on her face. It was a stark contrast to the state he had left her in over an hour ago.

"Then we have to give her her powers back," said Snow decidedly. Charming started.

"Uh, Snow? Do you really think that's a good idea, considering—?"

"You heard what she said, David," Snow said, turning to Charming and placing her hand over one of his. "We need to give her her best chance at healing, and that means doing _every_thing we can for _every_ part of her that needs fixing. What's happened to he is my fault," she continued, turning back to Regina but keeping her hand over his. "I need to make sure do everything I can to make it right." She locked eyes with the Blue Fairy and nodded.

At once, Mother Superior raised her wand and began passing it slowly up and down over Regina's body, pulling what looked like a thin curtain of blue light behind it as she moved it. With every pass, the cuff seemed to absorb the light directly around it and remain unchanged. After the seventh pass, however, something in the air shifted: the cuff now began pulsing a bright, hot blue at every pass of the curtain of light, as if it was trying to defend itself from being affected. "Almost there," muttered Mother Superior, almost to herself as she continued to fight the cuff's power: Charming could see sweat beading on her forehead again.

After several more passes, the cuff actually began to fade, right in front of their eyes, off Regina's wrist. It became more and more transparent, blue sparks surrounding and circling it as if to erase it from existence. "Yes!" whispered the Blue Fairy triumphantly, as, in one final, slow sweep of Regina's body, the cuff disappeared from being.

Mother Superior lifted her wand at last and watched Regina's peaceful slumber, then said, slightly breathlessly, "Now that the cuff is off…she's gonna be okay. Given time and rest," she turned to Snow and Charming, "her magic will return."

The sound of the front door opening interrupted, causing Charming to look over his shoulder. There was Emma, looking shell-shocked, her hair windblown and her movements slow and dazed.

'Oh no,' thought Charming, rushing forward as his daughter slowly closed the door behind her. "Emma—"


End file.
